The Power of Tiny Pull Requests

Hey James, solid post on tiny pull requests! Here are some thoughts that it sparked:

• Reduces cognitive load for everyone involved
• Similar to Kanban's WIP limits: constraining scope actually increases flow
• Reminds me of how LLMs generate responses token-by-token rather than trying to produce everything at once, i.e. sequential focus over parallel complexity
• Helps counter the problem where teams get rewarded for shipping features fast rather than maintaining sustainable pace or code quality
• Enables faster feedback loops with users and reduces blast radius when things go wrong
• Shows incremental progress that builds trust when stakeholders can't easily gauge complexity

There's something powerful about that pattern: whether it's code review or text generation, breaking things into smaller pieces just works better.